Finland - Religion

Religion

The right to worship freely is guaranteed by Article 8 and Article 9 of the Constitution of 1919 and by the Freedom of Religion Act that went into effect in 1923. In the 1980s, there were about thirty registered religions in the country, all of which met the minimum requirement of having at least thirty followers. Despite this wealth of religions, the country's religious life was dominated by one of its two state churches, the Lutheran Church of Finland, which had nearly 90 percent of the population as members. The other state church, the Orthodox Church of Finland, had a membership of about 1 percent of the population. The remaining churches or religions had 2 percent of the people in their congregations. Followers of the smaller churches included Jews, Muslims, Roman Catholics, a variety of Protestants, Mormons, Christian Scientists, and converts to eastern religions. Seven percent belonged to no church.